The present invention relates to a transport facility with a driving area that can be autonomously navigated by a motor vehicle. Moreover, the present invention relates to a method for determining damage to a motor vehicle.
The following discussion of related art is provided to assist the reader in understanding the advantages of the invention, and is not to be construed as an admission that this related art is prior art to this invention.
During operation, motor vehicles are occasionally damaged. Some of the damage is repaired immediately and sometimes the damage is not repaired or repaired later. If the motor vehicle is again damaged and the extent of the damage caused by the second event is to be detected, then this can usually not be identified unambiguously. This frequently creates a situation that in an accident with a vehicle that had prior accident damage, repairs are improperly charged to the last person responsible for the accident.
Another problem regarding the detection of collision damage can occur in autonomous driving where the vehicle drives fully automatically. During autonomous driving, the vehicle orients itself in relation to its surroundings and optionally receives additional information from systems that support fully automatic and autonomous driving. With such fully automated systems, it cannot be excluded that the responsibility for collision damage passes to the system and thus to the vehicle manufacturer or a specialized company. It is important in this context to be able to prove, when in doubt, that damage on the own vehicle or on another vehicle already existed before the accident or there was no accident, since the damage visible at the conclusion of the autonomous driving already existed before the vehicle was switched to fully automatic mode.
Similar challenges with detection of accident damage occur even with vehicles that are manually operated by people. One known solution is the installation of a tachograph. However, this solution has not been taken hold for many reasons. One of these reasons is that sometimes data are recorded which incriminate the owner of the tachograph itself.
It would therefore be desirable and advantageous to obviate prior art shortcomings and to provide an improved transport facility which enables autonomous driving, and with which it can be unambiguously determined whether damage to the vehicle was caused during autonomous driving. In addition, a corresponding method for detecting damage to the motor vehicle is to be provided.